I'm probably 90% against existence, but withhold 10% chance. Again, I am not a badass outdoorsman-'Great White Hunter'-type dude. But I have spent a considerable amount of time sleeping on the ground, and have never once come across a bear carcass for instance. Unless an animal was killed by predation- I haven't ever found it's remains and that includes mountain lion, wolves, bear, coyotes, or even a fox.

There are several photos of what appears to be a large predatory cat in the UK for instance, yet no remains have been found. Hell, people in Kansas say they've seen mountain lion/large cats and I remember as a kid down in Arkansas folks saying the same thing. Yes, those animals are known to exist and it isn't beyond imagination that a few might be roaming outside their range. But every now and then you read about the discovery of large animals/fish in the ocean that were thought to be extinct for 2 million years...recently a certain whale if I am not mistaken. All this is the open-minded ten percent side of me.

The overwhelming majority agrees that somehow, somewhere a person would have killed one and either cut a piece off, or gotten a very good up close photo.

Interesting if nothing else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish

There's a big difference. Your wilderness experience aside, there have been countless carcasses of all the animals you listed found in the wild. And there's clearly fossil records of these animals in the North American ground. Enough so that we can see how the animal has changed over the past million years or so. Each of those animals has been clearly photographed thousands upon thousands of times. We have instances of each of those animals in captivity all across the world. You can go to Google right now, and find more results than you can click in a day of these animals appearing clearly on trail cams and all sorts of other pictures.

Just this last year, a mountain lion was photographed in Kansas, and it's clear as day. And the mountain lion is actually a really good example of a solitary predator being unable to escape discovery. Mountain lions are incredibly solitary and independent animals, not to mention being nocturnal. They don't live in packs, and they have a territorial range larger than any other animal in the Western hemisphere. So there's very very few of them, they cover a huge range of territory, they're very elusive and rarely out in daylight. But look at the evidence we have for their existence.

Yet we still have zero evidence of a large unknown North American primate. Zero. Nothing. Nada.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheater5

Jaysus, dude. Do you live to argue? I'm not refuting any of the above, nor am I arguing for the existence of such an animal as bigfoot- it's like you're cherry-picking what you want to read and zeroing in on it. WTF have I said time and again? I AM NOT AN ADVOCATE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF BIGFOOT, SASQUATCH, MO-MO THE MISSOURI MONSTER OR THE SWAMP APE.

Overwhelming lack of evidence suggests there is no such animal. But, when I'm in a VA retirement home in 40 years and if I happen to read that some dude killed a gigantopithecus with his pickup truck in Oregon or Montana...I'll pause and go "son of a b*tch..."

This little exchange reminded me of an argument I had with a friend of mine a while back.

He's one of those super-logical types. No imagination whatsoever and zero grasp on the concept of possibility. If it's not 100% backed by current scientific theory then it just isn't real or isn't possible.

I can't remember how the exchange started, but I mentioned something about time travel and dinosaurs still living in remote parts of the Congo being possible. He flipped his shit and has brought it up on a consistent basis in an attempt to make me feel like an idiot. He couldn't seem to grasp the fact that I wasn't arguing that they exist, but that I was arguing for the possibility that they could exist. No one really knows what's is and isn't possible so arguing against it is pretty much futile..